[Guitar Woman]

Last of Us was fucking rad okay

It's like this ultra-bleak mashup of Children of Men, The Walking Dead and The Road by way of some unholy Resident Evil 4 / Manhunt bastard child. It does a thing I really like where it makes small numbers of enemies (like 3 or 4) a serious threat, and with bigger groups of like 10 that you'd thoughtlessly mow down in another game you really have to be stealthy and pick at them because you simply don't have the resources to deal with them all in a straight firefight.

Even when you're going around blowing heads off the firefights are really slow and methodical; the aiming cursor is slow and heavy, guns take a long time to fire and reload, and they hit like trucks both to you and the NPCs so when a motherfucker gets shot it actually feels like it carries some weight, not bullshit like Gears of War or Uncharted where you can absorb like 50 bullets every 5 minutes with no kind of problem. Actually when Joel gets shot he stumbles backwards for a second and blood flies off him towards the screen, which in addition to looking cool makes you feel like "I just got fucking shot, ow"

The physics engine is a bit fucked though and the friendly AI is the kind of goofy thing that people could make fun of for the next decade, but that shit doesn't matter because everything else about the game just feels fucking great; I can't remember the last time just shooting motherfuckers felt this satisfying, it probably was in RE4 now that I think about it. Last of Us also must have cost like a billion dollars because it looks fucking baller and it's super-detailed. It's so good, go get it.